Based on Treasury data through today, we think the US raised ~$31B in *total* tariff revenue in Aug. That's $146B calendar year-to-date total. The *new* 2025 tariffs raised about $23B in Aug alone & $88B YTD. The average effective tariff rate was 12.0% in Aug v 18.2% statutory.

The Federal Reserve is independent. Trump wants cheap money in the (false) hope that it will offset the harm done by his tariffs. He is attempting to purge directors who stand in the way of his fantasies to inflate his way out of the recession he is unilaterally creating.

Congress: - sets the Fed’s mandate and goals. - approves the leadership. - requires public testimony and formal reports twice a year. - maintains ability to redesign the statute. That’s actual democratic control and oversight, more so than if the Fed was run by the White House.

This is a blatantly authoritarian move that puts our economy—and Americans’ retirement savings—at risk.

The biggest disconnect I’ve maybe ever seen is between how Biden actually functioned as president and how the media reported on him. Policy wise he was one of the best we had but the relentless press bashing esp in right winged media has people thinking he was a lizard person

I’m still reading how both Wall Street and working class factory workers prefer this to the Biden economy and I’ll just say it’s clearly not about the economy but yall aren’t ready for that conversation.

With Lisa Cook suing to challenge Trump's firing of her, experts in mortgage law tell me her lawyer can now use discovery to dig into the role Trump loyalist William Pulte played in singling out mortgages of her, Schiff and Letitia James for scrutiny: newrepublic.com/article/199612…

Make no mistake, this is exactly what it seems to be: preparation to create a one-party dictatorship.

Mortgage applications are of course not public.

HCR on Pritzker’s warning to Trump not to send troops to Chicago. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-25-20…

Another awful NYT headline. Why does Trump have access to confidential information about his political opponents without a subpoena? Housing Official’s Push on Mortgage Fraud Gives Trump a Political Weapon nytimes.com/2025/08/26/us/…

No, Donald. You can't do whatever you want.

BREAKING: Iowa Democrat Catelin Drey just won the special election for State Senate in a Republican district. She won by 10 points. Trump won the district by 11.5 points A 20+ point swing! The tides are turning.

Trump wants interest rates as low as possible to boost the economy, because his tariffs and immigration restriction have slowed it down. Job creation averaged 168,000 per month last year; the last 3 months averaged 35,000.

NPR: “A whistleblower says a former senior DOGE official now at the Social Security Administration copied the Social Security numbers, names & birthdays of over 300 million Americans to a private section of the agency's cloud lacking adequate security...” npr.org/2025/08/26/nx-…

The A.I. Spending Frenzy Is Propping Up the Real Economy, Too nytimes.com/2025/08/27/bus…

BREAKING: An email shared with The Associated Press shows "Alligator Alcatraz" will likely be empty within days. apnews.com/article/florid…

Dems flailing to figure out how to regain popularity when there's a literal how-to guide example right across the border.